Crowned in Black: Chapter 30

Vastil Pass: 3 Days later

Karalti and I crouched on a jutting spine of black stone beside Zlaslo and his quazi, looking out across the plains to the west of Vastil Pass. We were twelve thousand feet up, equipped with the best binoculars the brand new Free Army Engineers could make, watching as Janos's fleet darkened the prairies with a mile-long convoy of battleships.

"I do not know about this," Zlaslo said uneasily. The Yanik Ranger was dressed for the cold: leather and fur, a dull gray scarf tied around nose and mouth. "There has not been such a large force in sight of Myszno since my great-grandfather's day, when the Vlachii came to conquer this place in the name of their Burned King."

"There sure are a lot of bad boys out there." I spoke just loud enough to be heard over the wind, tuning my binoculars to zoom in on the ship spearing toward the mouth of the Pass: the Illuminata, a Sarkany-class dreadnought no less impressive than our very own Metternich. Her hammerhead prow pointed straight toward Vastil. Over the course of twenty minutes, the bulk of the fleet slowed, banking into a defensible position behind some of the rolling hills around the roads. The Dreadnaught came to a slow stop, joined by a flotilla of other ships. No fewer than twenty Destroyer-class - most of them Dakhari make - came to flank her in an arrow-head formation. Smaller ships took positions on the outside of the wedge.

"An attack formation," I muttered. "They're forming a spearhead to enter the Pass."

The huge, ponderous troop carriers formed next, following up the rear. Other battleships fell into line with them.

"Looks like he's sending about one third of the fleet in." I frowned, watching as several troopships descended behind the hills. "He’s holding the bulk of his forces in reserve."

"They are testing our strength, like a man throwing a feint as he sizes his opponent in the ring," Zlaslo said.

"Then we’d better catch and break their arm." On impulse, I turned the binoculars skyward, looking for anything among the clouds. Karalti's position meant we could see for miles to the west and north-west, and the clouds were close. As I scrutinized them for signs of high-altitude ships, Karalti growled, her hide vibrating under my knees.

"What's the matter?" I dipped the binoculars to look around at her.

Karalti ducked her head, her horned crest flattening to her skull as she rattled a low, basso snarl. "Look where I'm looking."

Frowning, I tuned into Karalti’s mind, and used the Bond to locate what she was seeing. After a few seconds of staring, I spotted it: the flex of holographic wings catching the light and distorting the twisted, mutated form of a huge blue dragon. As we watched, he circled the flotilla of ships below, cruising at near the maximum altitude.

"That’s Tempest. Violetta’s dragon." I dipped the binoculars again, and scowled. "Fuck."

Zlaszlo followed my line of sight, and clicked his tongue in dismay. "Ahh, they are hard to see from the ground. Dragons? Many?"

"Just the one. For now." My eyes narrowed as I watched the big blue dragon lumber back into the clouds, wheeling slowly over the vanguard. "She's acting like a spotter or a scout. Dragons can't fly above sixteen thousand, so she's pushing the maximum ceiling... she's either supervising the fleet, spotting for the fleet, getting ready to call reinforcements in at the right time, or all three."

"She might be here to call reinforcements, yeah." Karalti’s voice was tight with tension, wings stiff by her sides. "I don't see any others."

"I'm going to make the call that she's here to back up Janos as a spotter, which would also give her the chance to assess our strength. In which case, we need to take her out before the battle starts. They're holding back a reserve force while they test us out." I leaned back on the saddle, thinking. "Zlaslo, go report to the Admiral. Tell them we've spotted a dragon over the Pass and to be prepared for a whole bunch of them appearing over the castle. We're about to get this party started."

Zlaslo saluted in the manner of the Yanik, thumping his fist over his heart, then bent over his quazi's saddle and dug his heels in. Chattering its toothy beak, the graceful bird-like creature leaped off the precipice and veered sharply toward the east, plunging at a fast glide until rider and mount were concealed by the shadow of the mountains.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Karalti lashed her tail, tensing underneath me in preparation for takeoff.

"I sure am." I folded the binoculars into my inventory, and slammed the visor of my helmet down. "Let's go roast this bitch. Quietly and carefully."

"I can't really fly over those clouds, but I can teleport INTO them." Karalti weaved her head, judging the distance. "And then I can dive at ‘em."

"Think you can hit them?"

"Before they even know it."

Karalti snapped her teeth together, biting down her instinct to roar in challenge, and awkwardly clambered down toward the pass before kicking off into a fast glide. I hung on as she veered into the same frigid shadows that Zlaslo had taken, curving back up to triangulate her position before she cast the spell.

The fold into darkness was brief: we appeared fifteen thousand feet in the air, where the air was so thin it was painful to breathe. Karalti was about a quarter mile back from Tempest, cruising the skies like an oblivious shark.

While she acquired our target, I went into our group PM. "Okay, boys and girls and automata: we just Violetta spotted with her dragon two miles out of Vastil. We're going for the kill. Brace for one Dreadnought, thirty-two Destroyers, sixty-four Skirmishers, flanking aerial cavalry, six troop ships and a partridge in a pear tree. Everyone in position?"

"Suri copy, in position and ready to engage." Her radio voice was flawless, as usual.

"Roger! Copy! We're ready with the strippers!" Rin had stopped bothering with the difference between 'roger' and 'copy'.

"Gar copy. Wish I had some strippers." Gar sighed wistfully. "All ready over here in ambush town."

"Uhh... I'm r-ready." Jacob, stationed in Fort Temeri, sounded like he was about to shit himself. "Ready to g-give the firing order as soon as, uh..."

"Just listen for my word," Suri said firmly.

Jacob swallowed hard enough that it was audible over the channel. "Yes ma'am."

I still wasn't happy about Jacob being involved - though saying that Suri was 'happy' about it would have been an overstatement as well. Whatever the pair of them had talked about, it had satisfied her enough to give the go-ahead. Jacob had been moved to Temeri Fort with his prison clothes, manacles, and his tracking anklet, and stationed with the Battlebrothers of Khors. Szonja the Living Flame, archmagus of Litvy and one of the best mages in Myszno besides Rutha, was stationed with them to enact and control the magical barriers that would prevent the fort from being demolished. They would force Janos's fleet to come closer so they could hammer on the shields, which was exactly what we wanted.

Karalti’s head was tracking Tempest’s flight path as she curved back up into the air, winging over to change directions and head for the mouth of the pass. "Ready?"

I slammed back a Stamina potion and activated my Mark of Matir ability, Dancing Fly. "Born ready."

Dancing Fly (Life): When this ability is activated in combat, it drains one Adrenaline Point per second. Each time you successfully evade an attack while activated, your Evasion increases by 5%. The bonus is cumulative and ends when the combat ends or you run out of Adrenaline.

Karalti’s body curved into an elegant, whisper-quiet dive toward the pair of rider and dragon. I braced into a streamlined crouch, the Spear held low and back. Karalti and I wordlessly communicated our strategy as the twisted blue dragon banked, gliding over the ships below like a condor. He was still roughly twenty-five percent larger than Karalti, and likely too high a level for us to kill without some extreme luck... but Violetta, clinging to her more traditional Dragon Knight's saddle on the back, was a soft target.

"Ready... aim..." I zoned in on the woman's silvery helmet. “Dispel.”

Karalti sucked in a deep breath, then burst out with a targeted anti-magic spell as I leaped from her back, plunging toward the sorceress in a blur of black fire. Violetta felt her personal magic shields falter and whirled, hands fumbling for her quick release straps, but too late. Black coils of energy gathered around the Spear and my arms in the split second before I collided, sending up an explosion that caused her dragon's back to bow as he screamed in pain and confusion.

"Hellooooo NURSE!" I didn't plan to let her have a chance to recoup: I burned a fifth of my remaining Adrenaline and rushed her. Karalti Split Turned, winging back over like a hunting swallow to fly straight at Tempest's face, jaws gaping with white fire.

Violetta hadn't been expecting an ambush - which told me that while she might be great at politics, she still wasn't thinking like a soldier. She barely had her hands up and her mouth open to cast when she took the spear to the gut. It struck off her armor, sending sparks flying in the second before Karalti's fireball engulfed the side of Tempest's neck. I burned more AP and hit Spider Climb as the big blue wailed and banked sharply. It jerked Violetta off her feet, her saddle ties catching around her ankles and slamming her against her dragon's back.

"What's the matter, Vi?" I called as she struggled. She was in trouble now: her saddle was burning. Karalti's Ghost Fire was like napalm, sticking to things and chewing at them. "Squalor got your tongue?"

Violetta’s face turned from a mask of fury to one of surprise, her hand stretched out toward me. Her dead blue eyes widened, and for a second, she almost looked like a human being instead of a creepy nightmare doll. "How do you…? No. Don’t say that name!"

"Why? Is Squalor like Bloody Mary? Say it three times in a mirror and it’ll give you a jump?" As Tempest righted and roared, blasting the sky with lightning, I glanced to make sure Karalti was alright before calling back. "Why are you doing this, Vi? Why are you working for them? You're not a twisted freak like Lucien and Nic. You're not a coward like Casper. Why?"

“YOU MAKE IT REAL EVERY TIME YOU SAY THAT NAME!” Maybe it was the shock of the assault, or the shock of hearing Squalor's name from someone other than her cronies, but Violetta's expression was now one of terror. As her dragon righted, she raised a hand and barked several words of power before I could attack and stop her, but instead of a fireball or a bolt of lightning, I felt Tempest's body shudder under my feet... and then vanish as both dragon and rider warped away right out from under me.

"Jesus fucking- TITS! KARALTI!" Suddenly, I was free-falling, tumbling for several seconds before I spread my limbs and maximized the drag to slow myself down. The wind was screaming through the cracks in my helmet, the pressure inside it changing as a dark shadow passed over my back. I frantically turned my head, expecting to see Tempest descending from the sky to obliterate me mid-air.

"Hang on! I've got you!" It was Karalti. She streaked toward me, wings folding in against her flanks as she weaved through the air. There was no sign of Tempest. "Keep those arms and legs spread!"

"That's what SHE said!" I fought the urge to windmill as the ground got closer and closer. It only took forty-five seconds to fall from 12,000 feet, and I was about twenty seconds from exploding in a cartoon 'splat' against the rocky plains below when Karalti leveled out over me and snatched me up in one clawed hind foot. She groaned as she labored back into the sky, heading straight for the mouth of Vastil Pass.

"Wheeeee!" I sang out, gripping one of her long scaled toes for dear life. As Karalti climbed back to a safe observation height, I stuck the Spear in my inventory, then swung around and wrapped myself around the dragon's ankle.

"What are you doing!? Quit squirming!" Karalti yelped.

"It's fine! Bunch your foot up against your belly, and reach back with a hand!" I realized pretty fast that I wasn't going to be able to climb Karalti's back leg to her back - not while in flight. But I could do it with her forearm.

"Oh my god. Do you know how hard this is!?"Karalti groaned, but she trusted me enough to comply: she steadied out into a glide and awkwardly fumbled back.

“She said that, too!”

Solonkratsu had long back legs and shorter forearms. They held their dexterous clawed hands off the ground. When Karalti’s little finger was almost touching her sickle-clawed toe, I leaped out and caught her hand, swinging from it before pulling myself up. Panting, grinning wildly, I kept one half-eye on my stamina and focused on my goal. "Now bank starboard a little!"

"Bank starboard, give me a reacharound, neener neener, I'm a dumb bossy human!" Karalti's voice took a sing-song mocking tone, but she obligingly tipped her wings. As her body seesawed, I Jumped from her wrist up to her ribs, grabbing the saddle straps with both hands. My body was shaking with adrenaline as I hauled myself up, hand over hand, until I reached my usual place.

"WOO! Fuck yeah!" I pounded the top of the saddle with a fist. “We won? I think?”

"Did Violetta and Tempest really just run away?" Karalti sounded uneasy - a feeling compounded by the sound of the first artillery barrage from within the pass. The blasts were deafening even at range.

"Looks like it. Unless she turned herself invisible." But even if she had, we were out of time. The battle was on.